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Biographies and autobiographies

  • Author:
    Knighton, Ryan
    Summary:

    An irreverent, tragicomic, astoundingly articulate memoir about going blind—and growing up On his eighteenth birthday, Ryan Knighton was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a congenital, progressive disease marked by night-blindness, tunnel vision, and, eventually, total blindness. In this penetrating, nervy memoir, which ricochets between meditation and black comedy, Knighton tells the story of his fifteen-year descent into blindness while incidentally revealing the world of the sighted in all its phenomenal peculiarity. Stumbling literally and emotionally into darkness, into love, and into adulthood, he uses his disability to provide a window into the human condition. His experience of blindness offers unexpected perspectives on sight and the other senses, culture, identity, language, and our fears and fantasies.

  • Author:
    Knighton, Ryan
    Summary:

    Knighton tells the story of his 15-year descent into blindness. Stumbling literally and emotionally into darkness, into love, and into adulthood, he provides a window into the human condition. He is powerful and irreverent in words and thought, and impatient with the preciousness that's expected in other books on disability.

  • Author:
    Downing, Elise
    Summary:

    Running away from your problems doesn't solve anything - but sometimes it's more fun than dealing with them Elise was spending a lot of time crying on buses. She had just graduated from university; had a shiny new flat, her first proper job and a budding relationship - and they were making her miserable. Sitting at work one day, she hit upon the obvious solution. Run 5,000 miles around the coast of Britain, carrying her kit on her back. Six months later Elise set off, with absolutely no ultra-running experience, unable to read a map and having never pitched a tent before. Over the 301 days that followed she developed a debilitating fear of farmyard animals, cried on a lot of beaches and saw Britain at its most wild and wonderful. With heart and humour, Elise explores the thrill of taking risks and putting your trust in total strangers, and learns some home truths along the way.

  • Author:
    Vecsey, George, Lynn, Loretta
    Summary:

    Loretta Lynn grew up in the mountains of Kentucky. At the age of twenty-four, she began penning songs and through years of hard work, talent, and true grit, eventually made her way to Nashville-eventually securing her place in country music history.

  • Author:
    Johnstone, Bill
    Summary:

    The men who worked British Columbia's mines have passed into history. Coal Dust In My Blood is a moving account of one coal miner's life, in plain, evocative language. But this book is much more than a personal memoir. Bill Johnstone's mining career spanned several decades and he worked in a wide variety of positions. His broad insights reveal important aspects of the history of coal mining in BC.

  • Author:
    Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem
    Summary:

    In 1965, eighteen-year-old Lew Alcindor played basketball for Coach John Wooden at UCLA. It was the beginning of what was to become a fifty-year long relationship. On the court, they broke basketball records. Off the court, they transcended their athletic achievements to gain even wider recognition and tremendous national respect. In this memoir, Abdul-Jabbar reveals the lessons Coach Wooden taught him through the "Pyramid of Success" and discusses how they in turn shaped his life.

  • Author:
    O'Connor, Ian
    Summary:

    The definitive biography of college basketball's all-time winningest coach, Mike Krzyzewski. Mike Krzyzewski, known worldwide as "Coach K," is a five-time national champion at Duke, the NCAA's all-time leader in victories with nearly 1,200, and the first man to lead Team USA to three Olympic basketball gold medals. Through unprecedented access to Krzyzewski's best friends, closest advisers, fiercest adversaries, and generations of his players and assistants, three-time New York Times bestselling author Ian O'Connor takes you behind the Blue Devil curtain with a penetrating examination of the great, but flawed leader as he closes out his iconic career. Krzyzewski built a staggering basketball empire that has endured for more than four decades, placing him among the all-time titans of American sport, and yet there has never been a defining portrait of the coach and his program. Until now. O'Connor uses scores of interviews with those who know Krzyzewski best to deliver previously untold stories about the relationships that define the venerable Coach K, including the one with his volcanic mentor, Bob Knight, that died a premature death. Krzyzewski was always driven by an inner rage fueled by his tough Chicago upbringing, and by the blue-collar Polish-American parents who raised him to fight for a better life. As the retiring Coach K makes his final stand, vying for one more ring during the 2021-2022 season before saying goodbye at age 75, O'Connor shows you sides of the man and his methods that will surprise even the most dedicated Duke fan.

  • Author:
    DiManno, Rosie
    Summary:

    Pat Burns was one of the great NHL coaches, one who seemed always to enjoy instant success. He capped his extraordinary career by coaching the New Jersey Devils to a Stanley Cup victory in 2003. Cancer--his third bout--finally claimed him in 2010, aged 58. Rosie DiManno, who knew Burns well, has written a revealing, exhilarating and heartfelt account of his life: his childhood as a fatherless, solitary male surrounded by many women, his years as a police officer, his glorious coaching career and his long and characteristically valiant ending.

  • Author:
    Ivey, Donna M., Boyer, J. Patrick
    Summary:

    This is the story of Rene M. Caisse of Bracebridge, Canada and describes her extraordinary perseverance to obtain official recognition of her herbal cancer remedy she called Essiac, her name spelled backwards. Rene Caisse was thrust into a life-long medical-legal-political controversy that still persists since her death in 1978. Rene wrestled with the Hepburn government of Ontario over the operation of her Bracebridge cancer clinic during 1935 to 1941 and her use of Essiac. She refused to reveal her secret formula and legislation demanding the recipe forced the closing of her clinic. The government was embroiled in the dilemma of ensuring their public favour and appeasing cancer patients. This documented research presents a biography of a remarkable woman and her struggle to help "suffering humanity."

  • Author:
    Johnson, Harold R.
    Summary:

    I open my eyes in the darkness, laying on my side, half my vision is of the earth and shadows; the other is of the sky, treetops, and stars. I should write Clifford's story. The thought emerges fully formed . . . The thought dissipates. I close my eyes and the earth and the sky disappear. The warmth of my sleeping bag wraps around me and sleep pulls me under into that half-world where reality and fantasy mingle in a place where coherent thoughts disintegrate. When Harold Johnson returns to his childhood home in a northern Saskatchewan Indigenous community for his brother Clifford's funeral, the first thing his eyes fall on is a chair. It stands on three legs, the fourth broken off and missing. So begins a journey through the past, a retrieval of recollections that have too long sat dormant. Moving from the old family home to the log cabin, the garden, and finally settling deep in the forest surrounding the property, his mind circles back, shifting in time and space, weaving in and out of memories of his silent, powerful Swedish father; his formidable Cree mother, an expert trapper and a source of great strength; and his brother Clifford, a precocious young boy who is drawn to the mysterious workings of the universe. As the night unfolds, memories of Clifford surface in Harold's mind's eye: teaching his younger brother how to tie his shoelaces; jousting on a bicycle without rubber wheels; building a motorcycle. Memory, fiction, and fantasy collide, and Clifford comes to life as the scientist he was meant to be, culminating in his discovery of the Grand Unified Theory. Exquisitely crafted, funny, visionary, and wholly moving, Clifford is an extraordinary work for the way it defies strict category and embraces myriad forms of storytelling. To read it is to be immersed in a home, a family, a community, the wider world, the entire cosmos.

  • Author:
    McDiarmid, Joy S.
    Summary:

    Clickety Clack is Joy McDiarmid’s self- portrait of bipolar mental illness and one of the most ambiguous sexual identities imaginable for a woman coming of age in the 1950s. Amidst gender and sexuality confusion, this Winnipeg woman began to look for romantic love and sexual fulfillment: sometimes wanting to dress as a man, sometimes as a woman, sometimes attracted to men, sometimes to women. In candid accounts of this paralysing complexity, which McDiarmid tried valiantly to understand and express despite oppressive social stigmas and parental strictures, her insights about human sexuality and "living the lie" are startling even in this age of open commentary about sex. Along primitive frontiers of treatment for bipolar disorders and dramas of shock therapy in psychiatric wards, entire years of McDiarmid’s life would slip by even as earlier years were being erased from her memory. Yet there came triumphant accomplishments in her competitive and stimulating world of advertising, university work, private enterprise, photography, travel, touring in her MG sports car, skilful tennis, and love. Such juxtaposed experiences of despair and defiant courage, supplemented at the end of each chapter with medical commentary by Joy’s psychiatrist Dr. Frances Edye, make Clickety Clack a rare road map to life.

  • Author:
    Shecter, Vicky
    Summary:

    Examines the life of Cleopatra, discussing her rule at an early age, alliances, acquisition of land for Egypt, enemies, and other related topics.

  • Author:
    Maraniss, David
    Summary:

    On New Year's Eve 1972, following eighteen magnificent seasons in the major leagues, Roberto Clemente died a hero's death, killed in a plane crash as he attempted to deliver food and medical supplies to Nicaragua after a devastating earthquake. David Maraniss now brings the great baseball player brilliantly back to life in this book.

  • Author:
    Hastings, Eli
    Summary:

    Serala drank frat boys under the table. She wore saris and ate delicately from plates of curry at family events; elsewhere she wore a lip ring, designer shades, and a cowboy hat and ordered bloody steaks. She wrote volumes of poetry, made amateur films, singlehandedly ran a chapter of Food Not Bombs, and ended up as a fierce advertising agency executive. She often slept less than five hours per week and would, at the slightest excuse, drive from L.A. to New York in a cool 50 hours. In some moments of danger, she split the lips of menacing strangers. And she gave herself over to the casual knives and fists of others for nothing more than another bag of heroin that she had plenty of money for anyway.

    Clearly Now, the Rain traces the decade-long relationship of Eli Hastings and his friend Serala: from ill-advised quests for narcotics in Mexican border towns through summer road trips, from southern California to Tennessee and on to New York City and Seattle, from 1996 to the very last days of 2004, when Serala’s journey concluded tragically at age 27.

  • Author:
    Sorell, Traci
    Summary:

    Mary Golda Ross designed classified airplanes and spacecraft as Lockheed Aircraft Corporation's first female engineer. This story traces her journey from being the only girl in a high-school math class to becoming a teacher to pursuing an engineering degree, joining the top-secret Skunk Works division of Lockheed, and being a mentor for Native Americans and young women interested in engineering. In addition, this story highlights Cherokee values such as working cooperatively, remaining humble, and helping ensure equal opportunity and education for all.

  • Author:
    Nagano, Kent, Kloepfer, Inge
    Summary:

    How relevant is classical music today? The genre seems in danger of becoming nothing more than a hobby for the social elite. Yet Kent Nagano has another world in mind - one where everyone has access to classical music. In Classical Music: Expect the Unexpected the world-famous classical conductor tells the deeply personal story of his own engagement with the masterpieces and great composers of classical music, his work with the world's major orchestras, and his tireless commitment to bringing his music to everybody. Narrating his first childhood encounters with music's power to overcome social and ethnic boundaries, he celebrates an art form that has always taken part in debates about human values and societal developments. The constantly declining relevance of classical music in these disrupted times, he argues, not only impoverishes society from a cultural perspective but robs it of inspiration, wit, emotional depth, and a sense of community. Getting to grips with classical music's existential crisis, Nagano contends that it is too crucial to humanity's survival to be allowed to silently disappear from our everyday reality. In this moving autobiography, Kent Nagano makes a compelling plea for classical music that is as exhilarating as it is thought-provoking.

  • Author:
    Land, Stephanie
    Summary:

    NATIONAL BESTSELLER A Good Morning America Book Club Pick A New York Times Most Anticipated Books of Fall From the New York Times bestselling author who inspired the hit Netflix series about a struggling mother barely making ends meet as a housecleaner, a "raw and inspiring" (People) memoir about college, motherhood, poverty, and life after Maid. When Stephanie Land set out to write her memoir Maid, she never could have imagined what was to come. Handpicked by President Barack Obama as one of the best books of 2019, he called it an "unflinching look at America's class divide...and a reminder of the dignity of all work." Later, it was adapted into the hit Netflix series Maid, which was viewed by sixty-seven million households and was Netflix's fourth most-watched show in 2021, garnering three Primetime Emmy Award nominations. Stephanie's escape out of poverty and abuse in search of a better life inspired millions. Maid was a story about a housecleaner, but it was also a story about a woman with a dream. In Class, Land takes us with her as she finishes college and pursues her writing career. Facing barriers at every turn including a byzantine loan system, food insecurity, the judgments of professors and fellow students who didn't understand the demands of attending college while under the poverty line-Land finds a way to survive once again, finally graduating in her mid-thirties. Class paints an intimate and heartbreaking portrait of motherhood as it converges and often conflicts with personal desire and professional ambition. Who has the right to create art? Who has the right to go to college? And what kind of work is valued in our culture? In clear, candid, and moving prose, Class grapples with these questions, offering a searing indictment of America's educational system and an inspiring testimony of a mother's triumph against all odds.

  • Author:
    Croft, Clary
    Summary:

    Folklorist, recording artist, actor, songwriter, broadcaster, storyteller, author, archivist, artisan, and designer: over a career spanning more than fifty years, Clary Croft has woven the threads of his vast array of talents into a tapestry that has enveloped the life of an artist, and in the process he’s become a household name in Nova Scotia and beyond. With charming humility and cheeky humour, Clary shares memories and anecdotes of an eclectic career including his work with The Privateers, Sherbrooke Village, Singalong Jubilee, Neptune Theatre, CBC Mainstreet and, perhaps most importantly, his collaboration with eminent folklorist Helen Creighton. Featuring a foreword by writer, broadcaster, and former co-host of CBC’s Singalong Jubilee Jim Bennet, and with more than fifty images in both colour and black and white, Clary Croft: My Charmed Life in Music, Art, and Folklore is an inspiring and entertaining chronicle of a creative life well lived.

  • Author:
    Croft, Clary
    Summary:

    Folklorist, recording artist, actor, songwriter, broadcaster, storyteller, author, archivist, artisan, and designer: over a career spanning more than fifty years, Clary Croft has woven the threads of his vast array of talents into a tapestry that has enveloped the life of an artist, and in the process he's become a household name in Nova Scotia and beyond. With charming humility and cheeky humour, Clary shares memories and anecdotes of an eclectic career including his work with The Privateers, Sherbrooke Village, Singalong Jubilee, Neptune Theatre, CBC Mainstreet and, perhaps most importantly, his collaboration with eminent folklorist Helen Creighton. Featuring a foreword by writer, broadcaster, and former co-host of CBC's Singalong Jubilee Jim Bennet, and with dozens of images in both colour and black and white, Clary Croft: My Charmed Life in Music, Art, and Folklore is an inspiring and entertaining chronicle of a creative life well lived.

  • Author:
    Pattison, Darcy
    Summary:

    Clang! Ernst Chladni's Sound Experiments by Darcy Pattison 2019 NSTA Outstanding Science Trade Book What if your science experiments were so interesting that even an Emperor wanted to know more? In 1806, scientist Ernst Chladni (KLOD-nee) left Germany for a three-year road trip, entertaining Europeans with his science. He made wires, columns of air, and solids vibrate. He wrote about this in his native German language, but his French scientist friends wanted to read about it in French. How could he get the cash he needed to write his new book? In February, 1809, Chladni's friends took him to the Tuliere Palace. This elementary science picture book dramatizes the exciting meeting between a German scientist and French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Like Bill Nye, the Science Guy today, Chladni popularized science. But during his work as an entertainer, he struggled to find the time and finances do actual research. This story provides a glimpse at the life of Ernst Chladni, the Father of Acoustics. It's an amazing example of how scientists collaborate internationally. The story is based on Chladni's own description of the event.

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